Weekly Zephyr #9: July 27th, 2017

Remedios Varo, As del Volante, 1962

I don't know what's tonic in an enraging week like this.  I had a subject all cued up for this newsletter but then he announced the ban on transgendered people serving in the military, and that in the middle of this fresh round of health care panic

 * f a n t a s y c l o u d f u l l o f p u n c h e d s e n a t o r s

I'm not typing his name into this newsletter right now. Someday I probably will but for now I want to preserve the freshly-fallen snow feeling  a place where his name has not been

Such a feeling of filth is on us and so I think we need a clean, refreshing vibe.

Please be my guests at this retreat in the Dolomites for a minute. It's not the Earth Dolomites. Earth has 2017 America on it and we are not where that is.

I fake booked us this place: Miramonti Hotel & Spa | Avelengo, Italy (again: not Earth Italy)

wait wait did they pretty much or exactly name this hotel & spa the "look at the mountains" hotel & spa? ? THAT IS FANTASTIC WHAT THE HELL ELSE WOULD THEY CALL IT HURRAY! !

Look at it some more. You know what this pool barn part is?

It's called the Relaxation House. That sentence went a little bit to pieces at the end there BUT THEY PROBABLY WROTE IT IN THE RELAXATION HOUSE so.

meanwhile you can be sure I'm going to start bespoking my needs everywhere I go

And now, in the name of clean, sound things that have integrity and aren't besmirching everything honorable back on the planet we're not on right now, here's the legendary Vietnamese monk Thích Nhất Hạnh explaining the four components of true love from the Buddhist perspective. I think about this so often. It's one of my favorite things.

Not only the desire, but the ability

Thích Nhất Hạnh does not have time for our half-assed, ham-fisted loving! He's so sweet—have you ever heard the sound of his voice? I heard a recording of him speaking once and it sounded like I was listening to a flower—but he also didn't come to play.   LOVE IS AN ART, YOU FUCKING BALLOON ANIMALS, he doesn't say at all but he would if he had an anger translator. IT'S A FIELD OF STUDY. GET IT RIGHT.

"This is a very strict plane."

my favorite throwaway line

  Why is learning about love something we have to do by accident, or just...on the go? And most of the time we learn about it from all kinds of people who know as little or less about it than we do. We just kind of pick up whatever we pick up about it and run with that. That seems like a mistake.  

  -we looked at a resort we cannot afford and then it feels like we got low-key scolded about love?   -yeah. when does the FIG section start that's what i wanna know

FIG SECTION

KEEP FROZEN MY EYE GET 'EM OUT OF THE FREEZER AND EAT 'EM

Two things you can do with two fig things.

1.

Blend the frozen figs of Trader Joe's with some pineapple, a banana, maybe some plain yogurt and definitely some coconut LaCroix.

2.

Fig Newtons crumbled up into in plain Greek yogurt for breakfast while you drink coffee on a Saturday morning

and watch last night's The Great British Baking Show while you also surf the web and then have to rewind all the time because you devalued the baking show for a spell there figuring you'd tune back in for the judging segments, but then wait, what? Did Rav's whole pie melt? Hang on, go back. Twenty times in an hour. Even though you're watching this with your family. Sorry, sorry. I'm paying attention now. What is Constance baking? Did they show the illustration already? Go back a second.

those illustrations have caused a stream-of-conciousness craving for this book

http://www.powells.com/book/gnomes-30th-anniversary-edition-9780810954984​

After I finishing journaling about the gap between my desire and my ability to love in the Relaxation House, I am going to tunnel down to this gnome house and stay there until we have a decent world again but I will bring my cell phone so I can still text "RESIST" to 50409 after I help some gnomes chop some gigantic chives